Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan’s heart tightened. “How could...”

How could such a catastrophic mistake happen at a critical time like this? But before he finished speaking, he changed his words. Fang Canran had an organization behind him. He was different from He Lingchuan, who was just a wandering lone wolf.

The more people there were, the greater the chance of mistakes. That was not something anyone’s will could change.

There was no point in placing blame now.

If this were Dong Rui, he would probably say something like, “Your people were exposed. What does that have to do with me?” After all, Fang Canran was not heavily involved in He Lingchuan’s side of the plan.

He Lingchuan’s brow furrowed. “What does he want to do?”

According to the original calculations, the best time to act would be two days later, when the Tianluo Star moved above Tianxuan Peak.

“He wants you to decide!” Uncle Ling spoke in a parrot’s peculiar, singsong tone. “If you insist on sticking to the original plan, we’ll immediately withdraw the exposed personnel!”

He Lingchuan glanced at it. “You have a lot of people deployed?”

Uncle Ling tilted its head and did not answer.

It seems like the answer to that is yes.

“Move the mission up!” He Lingchuan made a quick calculation on his fingers. “We do it tonight!”

If they followed the original plan, the Tianluo Star’s position would be more suitable. But that small margin of error could be corrected. Besides, Fang Canran had many people in place. If they waited any longer, who knew whether another mistake might occur, or whether they could still resolve it silently?

Better to strike by chance than wait for the perfect hour, risking all plans to fall apart. Since they had already started down this road, they might as well go all the way and act tonight!

Uncle Ling nodded, flapped its wings, and flew away. It had to hurry back and deliver the message.

After that, He Lingchuan woke Dong Rui, then contacted Juju through the fire spirit avatar and declared that the Mount Xu Plan would be moved up to tonight.

“What? Now?” Juju’s voice shot up at once. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m heading to Mount Xu right now!” He Lingchuan said decisively. “Once I arrive, we begin!”

“Good, good!” Juju was excited too. “I said long ago that you were dragging your feet!”

Plans could never keep up with changes.

Where in the world was there such a thing as absolute perfection? Where was there a plan so thorough that not a single leak remained?

Complaining now would only waste time. He Lingchuan and Dong Rui entered the snail toad’s giant shell, and the aberrant creature sank underground, advancing toward Mount Xu.

He Lingchuan took out a brush and paper and began calculating at high speed.

The data he had originally worked out was meant for two days later. Since the plan had been moved up, he had to recalculate for the position of the array eye tonight.

Any mistake in the details or any sudden accident could lead to failure.

Facing a colossus like the Heavenly Palace, the cost of trial and error was simply too high. He had to be cautious, and even further so.

He had also prepared contingency plans for failure. Yet even if he managed to escape alive in the end, this might be his only chance to obtain the lid of the Generous Pot.

Miss it, and it would be gone.

Dong Rui, sitting beside him, did not dare disturb him, but he had already taken two deep breaths, unable to dispel the anxiety in his chest.

After so many days of planning, we’re finally getting to it?

His role was simple. He only had to provide support and extraction; the true difficulty lay entirely with He Lingchuan. Even so, he was still so nervous that his palms were sweating.

Dong Rui secretly wiped his hands on his pants, but in the end he could not help but ask He Lingchuan in a low voice, “Hey, are you really not nervous?”

This man is going to challenge the heavenly gods of Lingxu with a mortal body!

In six hundred years, every madman who dared do something like that has died.

Not a single one has succeeded!

How could he be so calm? Heck, he looks as if he’s just going to someone else’s house as a guest rather than rushing toward a battle of life and death!

He Lingchuan glanced at him and continued calculating as he replied, “When facing great matters, one should have stillness of spirit. Isn’t it a little late to start getting nervous now?”

Not being nervous now would be what’s abnormal, alright? Dong Rui rolled his eyes.

He Lingchuan continued, “What I care about is that Fang Canran has his own private plans. According to our prior agreement, his people should already be standing by in the northern city. So why were they exposed in the southern city right now?”

Dong Rui’s heart clenched. “You mean he might betray us?”

He Lingchuan waved a hand. “No, there’s no need to worry about that. Fang Canran’s will is firm. He hates Lingxu City even more than I do. I think he has some other plan in private.”

“If there were no benefit in it for him, why would he help us?” Dong Rui said casually. “It’s not like he’s one of us.”

He Lingchuan clapped his hands. “Well said, that’s exactly it!”

Fang Canran had plotted in Lingxu City for so long. How could he be willing to merely cooperate with He Lingchuan’s plan?

But the arrow was already on the string and had to be loosed. As long as He Lingchuan knew Fang Canran would not sabotage him, that was enough. For now, he had to focus on the task before him.

About half an hour later, his calculations were complete. He carefully checked them several more times until he was certain there were no errors.

The Soul-Stealing Mirror had been holding back for a long time. Now, it finally coughed.

He Lingchuan ignored it.

The mirror coughed again.

He Lingchuan sighed, stood, walked to one side, and said in a low voice, “Speak.”

The mirror immediately began chattering, “I want to ask you, ask you again... Once you step onto Mount Xu, there’s no turning back. Are you sure you want to do this? If you turn around now, there’s still time.”

This was the final chance to give up the risk in exchange for safety!

Its master’s plan was truly both insane and bizarre. Even though it had watched He Lingchuan build the scheme bit by bit, prepare it piece by piece, going from something illusory and impossible to something that now actually had a chance of success...

The more it thought about it, the more terrified it became.

What if they failed?

Moreover, the probability of that “what if” was not small. After all, He Lingchuan’s opponent was the Heavenly Palace.

The Heavenly Palace all living beings had to look up to.

Whether he succeeded or failed, He Lingchuan would have to face the fury of all Beijia.

That mountain-toppling, sea-overturning pressure, that hunt that would scour the blue heavens above and the yellow springs below—just thinking about it made the mirror feel suffocated.

Is there still time for me to cry and beg for a change of master?

He Lingchuan pressed his knuckles. They cracked twice. His face and voice were both as calm as an ancient well.

“I can turn and leave, but then I’ll spend the rest of my life fleeing.”

As long as the Heavenly Palace held that divine artifact, the secret of He Lingchuan’s ties with the Generous Pot would be exposed sooner or later.

At some unknown time, the Heavenly Palace would find him.

They would not let him go, just as they had not let the State of Yuān go, and just as they had not let Panlong City go.

If he left now, he would only gain a moment of borrowed peace. The latter half of his life might be spent in endless unease, assuming he truly had a latter half to live.

“If I can take the divine artifact back, then from now on, the sea and sky will be wide open.”

This pass was the hardest one, but only by breaking through it would infinite possibilities open ahead.

At its heart, this was a choice.

Would he choose to live under pressure, or fight to his heart’s content?

Dong Rui happened to come closer and did not catch the earlier words clearly. “Take back what?” Does he mean Zhu Erniang’s molted shell?

He Lingchuan ignored him.

This trip to Beijia had made him a completely different person from who he had been several months ago.

His vision, understanding, and sense of the larger game, as well as his cultivation, martial techniques, and state of mind, had all advanced by leaps and bounds.

Moreover, he faintly sensed that the key to his next breakthrough still lay in the words “courageous and relentless advancement.”[1]

What he practiced was the Wave-Cleaving Heart Method. He was destined to face towering waves head-on and become the proud one who cleaved them apart.

This was the price of growth, the price of progress.

The Mount Xu Plan was a heavenly chasm that stood across his future, across the progress of his cultivation.

If he crossed it, the flood dragon would enter the sea.

If he failed to cross it, his life would end here.

He could do as the mirror suggested and simply give up. But if he turned away from such a precious opportunity, he did not know whether another chance would ever come.

So where was the choice?

Before him, there had only ever been one road.

He still remembered that before the He Family left Heishui City for Xia Province, He Yue had once asked him a question, “Brother, I’m ready. Are you?”

The snail toad just so happened to surface at that moment. He Lingchuan looked up at the dark, heavy sky and let out a long breath.

“I’m ready too.”

I’m ready to stab a hole through this very sky!

* * *

The moon was dark, and the wind blew strongly.

Riding the snail toad, He Lingchuan and Dong Rui emerged in the mountain forest outside Mount Xu.

With the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array in place, the Mount Xu region forbade escape spells and techniques. Aside from Juju, the local guardian spirit, no one could burrow in or out through the earth.

This time, they surfaced closer to Kaiyang Peak. According to He Lingchuan’s calculations, the array eye of the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array should currently be east and slightly above Kaiyang Peak. However, the exact angle still had to be converted.

If they had acted two days later as originally planned, the array eye of the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array would have been located directly above Tianxuan Peak and would have been easy to determine.

But since Fang Canran’s side was at risk of exposure, they could only make things harder for themselves and force the plan through now.

This place lay far from Tianshu Peak, and the defenses on the ground were relatively weaker, making it more favorable for their operation.

He Lingchuan put on his mask, patted Dong Rui’s shoulder, and said quietly, “See you in front of Tianshu Peak!”

“Half an hour!” Dong Rui handed him the bat monster puppet and gritted his teeth. “If you’re not there within half an hour, I’m leaving.”

He was about to turn away when he suddenly stopped and grabbed He Lingchuan’s arm. “Good luck!”

With that, Dong Rui burrowed back into the snail toad’s shell and vanished into the ground.

He Lingchuan sprinted three hundred meters forward and entered Mount Xu’s territory.

The rock-fire aberrant creature Juju was already waiting for him there. It had compressed its body into a stone man barely 1.33 meters tall. Only its joints revealed a little red light; everywhere else was pitch-black stone.

When they met, it did not waste words. “Follow me!”

To be honest, Mount Xu’s defenses could not be called lax. There were corresponding sentry posts on the mountaintops, halfway down the slopes, and at the bottoms of the valleys. Each post held five guards, and the sentries could see and support one another.

And that was only what was out in the open. There were even more hidden sentries. One must not forget that this was a monster state. Monsters on guard duty made the defenses even harder to prepare for.

Unfortunately, Juju understood the distribution of the local defenses even better than the defenders themselves did.

With this insider guiding him, He Lingchuan moved smoothly, easily avoiding every guard post and eye.

Juju stopped beneath a large tree and lowered its voice, “Don’t move. On the cliff about 160 meters ahead, there’s a night owl guard. It was temporarily added tonight.”

An owl’s eyes were dozens of times better than a human’s at night. It would not be easy for He Lingchuan to stroll brazenly beneath its gaze.

But he knew that Juju, as the guardian spirit, must have a way to deal with that.

Sure enough, after more than twenty breaths, Juju suddenly said, “Go, quick!”

They used the night as cover and rushed swiftly through the low shrubs. The rock-fire aberrant creature said, “I had an avatar drive a nest of giant rats right under its nose. Once it flew down to the ground, we could pass.”

He Lingchuan asked, “Did you test the airflow cutoff diameter around the array eye?”

“I did. Ten meters.” Juju’s answer was extraordinarily confident. “I tested it over and over. There’s no mistake.”

1. Note that the character divination from before only mentioned courage (勇). ☜